AGO’s report: “Ownself can check ownself”

That’s what Terry’s Online Channel, TRE, other anti-PAP sites and their hard-core fans seem to telling other S’poreans: “Ownself can check ownself”,

This clearly is not something they really want to do.

After all, they have the motto, “The PAP is always wrong”. So they gleefully highlight the contents of the Auditor-General’s report into the many cock-ups that the PAP administration make. All good knocking fun, while hurting the PAP. as they see it.

But they promote the PAP’s self-serving idea, “Ownself can check ownself”all the same.

No-one can deny that the AGO’s report really does show that the MIW and their public service minions have feet of clay. They are not the super heroes they pretend to be.

But don’t Terry’s Online Channel, TRE, other anti-PAP sites and their hard-core fans realise that by praising the AGO’s report in order to validate their world view that “The PAP is always wrong”, they are in fact telling the 60-70% of S’poreans that consistently support the PAP that, “Ownself can check ownself”?

“Ownself can check ownself” is a unique selling point of the PAP. And Terry’s Online Channel, TRE, other anti-PAP site and their hard-core fans are double confirming that it works? With enemies like these, who needs friends?

I mean don’t Terry’s Online Channel, TRE etc realise the AGO is just another part of the PAP administration, juz like the much derided presidency, and the police they so love to hate?

In that light, isn;t the AGO showing “Ownself can check ownself” by criticising the other parts of the administration? Really one should rxpect better of Terry’s Online Channel etc than fall into the trap of promoting “Ownself can check ownself”.

And have they forgotten that they were rubbishing the AGO’s report on the then AHPETC town council, pointing on its “flaws”. (Btw, KPMG, has found even more problems, saying that another 18 months will be needed to fix the WP TC’s accounting system. But that’s material for another post.).

And now they are saying that the AGO’s report on the PAP administration is a good piece of work? Because the report whacks the PAP isit? Something doesn’t sound right does it? Shouldn’t they use the same logic to this report as they did to the report on the town council?

Yes I’m mocking and rubbishing Terry’s Online Channel, TRE, other anti-PAP sites and their hard-core fans for behaving like the constructive, nation-building legal media who also highlight and praise the AGO’s report. At least they get paid for their efforts.

But I’m constructive in my motive. How can they hope to convince the swing voter to swing away from the PAP with such flawed logic or assumptions? Or such inconsistency?

And a more subtle point I’m trying to make is that in a de-facto one-party state, it’s a mistake to unthinkingly use ang moh logic (based on the assumptions of living in a liberal democracy) to analyse any situation. They should “Seek truth from facts”, not from ang moh assumptions and logic.

As to the real worth of the AGO’s report, someone put this comment** on FB with which I concur:

Well its a good reminder that bureaucratic organisations will have some degree of inefficiencies, no matter how many brilliant people you hire inside, are sometimes antagonistic to the rules applied to them due to constraints of operations, and that sometimes they get overcharged or cannot solve certain otherwise easily resolvable corporate issues because well…some people are sometimes out of touch with the industries they dabble in.

… and of course proof that Singapore’s public sectors are not an exception to the existing theories in bureaucracy. Love this AGO report because its such great research evidence lol.

Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly not to prove that “The PAP is always wrong” or “AGO report blows gaping hole in PAP’s rhetoric of competent and efficient government”. At best, it shows that the bureaucracy here is like any other bureaucracy: flawed.

But course Terry’s Online Channel, TRE, other anti-PAP sites and their hard-core fans would not agree. The PAP is really lucky in having them as enemies.

——————–

*Andrew Loh of TOC (then The Online Citizen, not Terry’s Online Channel) was a real fan of the WP TC’s accounting practices. Nothing was wrong said TOC. Much good did it do TOC. The WP MPs never donated a cent to TO. It was a SDP member who made a big donation.

**This comment also gives the lie to the SDP’s charge that “AGO report blows gaping hole in PAP’s rhetoric of competent and efficient government”.

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To be real. the audit “findings”, the word auditors used to highlight transgressions, are on the whole quite minor given the size and scope of the audits. One or two merit investigation into corrupt practices e.g. the payment for 400k consultancy for the construction of a 400k bin. That’s about all.

Those who work in real organizations are well aware that rules get broken or circumvented not because of negligence or mischief but because people are in a corner, and that is the lesser of evils. The real concern is the prevailing system that produces such behavior or circumstances. The civil service, by and large, has the opposite reputation – sticking to rules no matter what. Possibly because they fear being stars in the AGO’s report.
We have to know the details of the matter of those bin centre consultancy, before we judge . For all we know the NAC might have wanted ” artistic ” bins. :）

Critics should have said “SO WHAT?!?!” Every year AGO highlights millions of taxpayer dollars being poorly managed or spent. Opaque organisations like Mindef are frequent repeat stars of this annual AGO exercise. And yes, 99% of the time the people involved are either taking a light-hearted “it’s already happened, let’s move on” attitude or a simple light tap on the wrist at most. It’s become an empty academic exercise to smoke the public that govt is doing something to protect taxpayers money. Very few people involved are really held accountable and painful/deterrent punishments meted out. Those actually punished are few & far between, where there must be actual corruption going on e.g. NParks Brompton bikes saga or SCDF chief corruption. Hundreds of other civil servants or ministers involved in those other shoddy practices or deals get away with it and business as usual.